Why crowd-sourced prize pools shouldn't be the future of eSports

Let me get this out of the way up front: this isn’t a post about Dota 2 or League of Legends. Valve and Riot have approached eSports very differently, and I’m going to make a few comparisons below, but I’m not making an argument about which game is better, or who has been right or wrong up to this point.

Actually, I think in their own way both companies have made a great contribution to eSports. Valve’s massive TI3 and TI4 prize pools have done a lot to call public attention to just how big and serious eSports have become. And Riot’s stable and professional league system shows that these sorts of competitions are interesting and sustainable over the long term, just like regular professional sports leagues.

But I don’t want to talk about the past, I want to talk about where we go from here, this watershed moment where ESPN is covering eSports and the world’s attention is on the phenomenon like never before. And as much as this might anger some Dota 2 fans, I think crowd-sourced prize pools need to go. Here’s why:

Unsustainable growth

One of the main reasons a crowd-sourced prize pool like TI4’s attracts so much attention is that it breaks records. TI4’s payout was, as everyone knows, the largest in eSports history. But the prize pool can’t continue to grow in perpetuity. And the more the high prize number gets hyped, the more of a let-down it will be when the prize inevitably hits that zero growth point or, god forbid, actually declines from the previous year. Just as experts are now hailing the TI4 prize pool as proof that eSports’ time has come, any reduced growth or drop in the prize pool year-on-year will likely be hailed as proof that eSports is dying.

Sure, a crowd-sourced prize pool probably can continue to grow for years to come, as neither Dota 2 nor League of Legends are showing any signs of slowing down in terms of their global popularity. But sooner or later, there will come a saturation point beyond which the prize pool cannot climb, and that will be used in the press as evidence that eSports were just a fad—a fad that is now dying.

And there are a lot of ways growth could slow that you might not think of. Let’s say, for example, that two Chinese teams make the finals of next year’s The International as well. The following year, do you think American and European fans will be likely to contribute as much to the Compendium? People donate in part because they want to feel like they’re contributing to something their favorite teams and players could win. So if one team or one region’s teams ever get to an era of competitive dominance (as it seems Chinese teams might be in Dota, and as Korean teams already are in LOL), fans of other teams and regions are going to be less interested in donating.

Ultimately, I think eSports can and should follow the example of regular sports when it comes to sustainability: prize pools should come from sponsors and from the league’s own profits from things like ticket and merchandise sales, rather than relying on the fickle generosity of the game’s fanbase.

High profile, wrong focus

Another problem with the massive prize pools crowdsourcing creates is that it puts the focus in the wrong place. Just look at a lot of the coverage of TI4 outside of competitive Dota circles. It’s not about the teams competing, and usually it’s not even about the fans who made the prize pool possible. It’s about the money; the headline is essentially “Wow, people can make a lot of money playing video games now!”

And while that has drawn a lot of attention to the eSports industry (and that’s a good thing!), it could be harmful if it continues forever. When you look at the media coverage of traditional sports championships, for example, it’s almost always about the teams and the players involved. There are storylines, there is drama, and it’s really compelling! It’s almost never about how much money the winning team will walk home with.